


falling through the walls again

by goinghost



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Not Phantom Planet Compliant (Danny Phantom), can be pre-relationship gray ghost if you squint, which i will squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24325846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goinghost/pseuds/goinghost
Summary: “Why did you not say anything?” And there it was, that angry confrontation he’d been ready for. The thing about that was that now Danny was angry too.“What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Val, you know that ghost that ruined your life. Surprise! It’s me!’” He laughed but there was no humor in it, “Yeah, that’d go over really well.”“I tried to kill you!”“And I let you! We all have problems here. It’s stupid arguing over this.”--Valerie is angry until she's not. Danny is not angry until he is. Things get marginally better, eventually.
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Valerie Gray
Comments: 25
Kudos: 272





	falling through the walls again

**Author's Note:**

> i've had a draft of this written for like a year but i woke up unable to get it out of my head until i edited the whole thing so here we are! i love valerie and danny's relationship and i have a lot of thoughts on how a reveal would go that i tried to put down here. i'm a big gray ghost fan personally but i tried to keep this as platonic as possible because i think it'd take them a bit to get from this point to a point where they can be together romantically. 
> 
> title is from 'existential heckle' by the yellow dress
> 
> rated t for a few curses!

It’s been a week. She’s known for a week. 

There had been a problem with Skulker. He’d busted out some new anti-halfa tech just to get on Danny’s nerves. It normally wouldn’t have been an issue, but the Red Huntress decided to take the two-for-one ghostbusting deal and arrive just in time for Skulker’s weird de-transforming ray to go off. Valerie had seen. Danny saw her see. She’d watched him become Danny Fenton and she’d just flown away, like she couldn’t stand it, completely ignoring Skulker’s continued terrorizing.

And now she was here, suit deactivated and eyes doing something funny to Danny’s stomach. 

“Hey,” he said. 

She didn’t even bother to greet him. “You never said anything.”

He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and mentally debated the merits of being Danny Fenton for this conversation. But that’d probably just freak her out more, having to have her angry confrontation with one of her best friends instead of the “evil” ghost boy. 

Danny sighed into a response, “No, Valerie, I never said anything,” 

“ _Why_ did you not say anything?” And there it was, that angry confrontation he’d been ready for. The thing about that was that now Danny was angry too. 

“What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Val, you know that ghost that ruined your life. Surprise! It’s me!’” He laughed but there was no humor in it, “Yeah, that’d go over really well.”

“I tried to kill you!”

“And I let you! We all have problems here. It’s stupid arguing over this.” Danny flapped his hand as if to prove how stupid it was. 

Valerie’s face did...something. Crumpled. She sat down on the grass and sighed, “Were you ever going to tell me?”

This was not how he thought this conversation would go. He thought they’d yell at each other for at least five more minutes before Valerie ‘I will never give up’ Gray gave up the righteous indignation. He gave his own sigh, kneeling down next to her and flopping on his back. Danny rubbed his left hand through his hair and along his face. “No. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

She laughed, “Seems like everything’s complicated with you, Ghost Boy.”

“Don’t I fucking know it.” He groaned, bringing an arm to rest across his eyes. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t exactly trust Valerie enough to go in blind, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t be attacking him. “Believe it or not, you trying to kill me was maybe one of the least complicated things.”

“Oh yeah?”

“God, yes. All the stuff with Vlad and my parents, the mess with some big new ghost popping up every week. _Danielle_. You trying to kill me was just a ghost hunter after her prey.” He smiled, “Simpler times.”

“But you aren’t—you’re not a ghost, Danny,” She squinted at him, like she was trying to solve a puzzle that wasn’t cooperating. Her eyes flickered from his white hair to his green eyes to the faint glow around all of his limbs. “Or—you are a ghost, but you’re also Danny. And I don’t know about Phantom, but Danny’s not evil. 

Valerie looked like she was doing a particularly challenging math problem, “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Whatever you are now, you were Danny longer and I have to believe there’s still something of him left. Danny was—is—a good person. Phantom at least doesn’t kill people. I spent so much time hunting you and I don’t think it was worth it.”

It was...hard, hearing Valerie talk about him like he was dead or two separate people. Harder than he’d thought it’d be. “One: I am Phantom. And I’m Danny. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, believe it or not. Two: don’t beat yourself up over it. I would’ve done the same thing in your position, you know.”

Valerie looked like she was beating herself up over it. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, I’m part ghost, part human, all Danny.” He fingergunned, then stopped, figuring the gesture probably wasn’t appropriate given the circumstances. “You see, when I turned on the ghost portal—”

“No, not about that. Frankly, I’d rather not know about your freaky biology.” She looked at him, really looked at him, “How can you be okay with this? Danny and I—we dated and I tried to _kill_ Phantom—or you or _whatever_.” She looked frustrated, “There was killing involved and so were you.”

“Lots of people try to kill me. I’d be miserable if I started holding grudges.”

“Stop doing that!” And she was in his face now, pointing an accusatory finger with her other hand keeping her balanced in the grass.

“Doing what?” 

“Making it okay!”

“Fine!” He stood up, if nothing else than to get her out of his space. “You hunted me like an animal, Valerie, and it sucked. Is that what you want to hear? I had nightmares where I had to get away from you. Sometimes I’d hear your voice and it’d scare me so bad I stopped breathing. Once, you gave me a blast burn on my back that scarred into a star shape. Want me to go on?” 

He was breathing heavy and she looked horrified. _Good,_ a small part of him thought. This entire situation was horrifying for him. Still, he said, “We all do shit we’re not proud of and some of us can’t ask for forgiveness. I’m giving it to you on a silver platter, just take it.”

Valerie was silent for a long time. She stared at her hands. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. “I...okay. Okay. I wish it didn’t happen but—”

“Yeah, I do too, Val. Believe me. But I’m not going to hold it against you like you obviously want me to to feed your ghost guilt complex.” _I’ve got enough of that on my own,_ he didn’t say. “Like I said: it’s complicated.”

“Yeah,” Valerie sighed, “It is.”

They sat together, listening to the wind for a few minutes. Valerie picked at the grass, weaving pieces together. Danny tapped out rhythms on his knees. They heard bird calls. It was peaceful. 

Danny wished so badly that he could read her thoughts somehow, just to know what was going on in that brain of hers. Every time he’d thought up this scenario, he’d never factored in that she’d feel _bad_ for hunting him down. Of course, he’d never given her a week to think about it, it was usually a shoot-on-sight-for-playacting-as-a-human kinda deal. He didn’t realize her conscience would grow big enough to fit a ghost in there. Her life had been ruined by ghosts, by him specifically, and she’d managed to rationalize the situation enough to understand that what she’d been doing was wrong without him even having to explain his whole deal. 

Valerie Gray was full of vengeance and stubborn and complicated and she might just be one of the best people Danny’s ever met. 

And, yeah, hunting Danny for sport when he’d done his best not to be a threat was kind of fucked up, but they’d all done some fucked up things in the name of ghost hunting. A part of Danny was still very mad at Valerie trying to use him to make herself feel bad when she’d terrorized him as the Red Huntress for years, but a bigger part of him just wanted to be friends with her again without worrying about when she was finally going to kick his ghostly bucket permanently. 

It was complicated. 

_Beep beep beep_ , Valerie’s ghost tracker went off right as Danny saw a flash of his own breath, taking him out of his thoughts. They both looked at each other in the disrupted silence for a moment and started laughing. It was soft at first, but quickly grew until they were both bent over and clutching their stomachs. 

Valerie wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, “I’ll take this one, I have some aggression to work out.” 

“Cool,” Danny smiled, “but I can’t let you have all the fun. Tag team it?”

She got to her feet and reached a hand out, nodding “Tag team it.”

Danny took her hand, “And maybe afterward we could grab a burger?”

Valerie powered up her suit, her red visor coming down over her head, “I’d like that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos bring me to life (wake me up inside)!


End file.
